Never said nor implied that.
Historical Jesus
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Never said nor implied that.
In the supposed 6 or 7 original letters ... what did Paul say about Pilate?
Not going to really disagree with you regarding "Paul", I've posted before that I consider Paul to have been the originator of Christianity, the Hubbard, the Smith character, but over the past few years I've learnt a lot about the problems with a historical Paul.... so even that may not be as well evidenced as I once believed.
But can we set this aside as it really isn't needed to talk about the historical Jesus , that would still be a "real" person Paul used to kick start Christianity.
Ah, interesting stuff, thanks Delvo.
I wish people would stop derailing into who’s more fanatical/unskeptical than whom. Amount of interesting that is to read: zero.
And for the record I really did mean, unconnected to anything that supposedly happened. I wasn’t trying to cryptically refer to Paul. But by now someone must have, in the ‘this would make a great novel’ sense, written an actual fictional OT/history based someone-making-up-a-messiah character, like a serious ‘Life of Brian’ vs ‘Davinci Code’ Dan Brown kind of thing.
I don’t imagine such a messiah maker character in history would have been after money but rather the challenge itself.
Even sourcing everything to OT and Jewish traditions but in a way that actual Jewish scholars would generally scoff at reminds me of the way that one 90’s anime borrowed all kinds of Christian and Jewish imagery just purely for flair, not to appeal to people who knew about that mythology but rather to lend a sense of depth to appeal to people who knew next to nothing about it.
As for the historical version, I’d have to get dejudge to chime in on his picture of who thought what in early Christianity up to and through ‘Paul’ but it sounds a lot like whenever the Pauline stuff got popular it turned Christianity in the direction of the modern version (or it was turning that way and Paul was created to reinforce it, either way).
What are you guys referring to with arguments among pillars and circumscision and stuff? Sources?
I wish people would stop derailing into who’s more fanatical/unskeptical than whom. Amount of interesting that is to read: zero.
And for the record I really did mean, unconnected to anything that supposedly happened. I wasn’t trying to cryptically refer to Paul. But by now someone must have, in the ‘this would make a great novel’ sense, written an actual fictional OT/history based someone-making-up-a-messiah character, like a serious ‘Life of Brian’ vs ‘Davinci Code’ Dan Brown kind of thing.
I don’t imagine such a messiah maker character in history would have been after money but rather the challenge itself.
Even sourcing everything to OT and Jewish traditions but in a way that actual Jewish scholars would generally scoff at reminds me of the way that one 90’s anime borrowed all kinds of Christian and Jewish imagery just purely for flair, not to appeal to people who knew about that mythology but rather to lend a sense of depth to appeal to people who knew next to nothing about it.
As for the historical version, I’d have to get dejudge to chime in on his picture of who thought what in early Christianity up to and through ‘Paul’ but it sounds a lot like whenever the Pauline stuff got popular it turned Christianity in the direction of the modern version (or it was turning that way and Paul was created to reinforce it, either way).
What are you guys referring to with arguments among pillars and circumscision and stuff? Sources?
The Son of the Ghost was called Christ in the NT fables.
People calling the son of a Ghost Christ does not make the Ghost a figure of history.
Jesus, the son of the Ghost called Christ is fiction character.
It is documented that Jesus the son of Damneus was High Priest c 63 CE.
It is also documented in Christian writings that the Jews called their High Priests and Kings the Christ [THE ANOINTED]
Examine Church History attributed to Eusebius.
Eusebius' Church History 1.3.
King David was called the Christ [ANOINTED] hundreds of years before the fables that the Son of the Ghost was born of a Virgin.
Since you quoted Wikipedia:
The passage in Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 is a forgery in its present form.
Just for other more objective participants here (if not for Jerrymander) - if people agree with biblical scholars who say that Paul's letters pre-dated the bible, and if 20 to 50 years later gospel writers knew the contents of those letters, then it would be quite easy for them to use Paul's letters deduce that Jesus had died around 33AD (because in the letters, it is implied that Paul's vision was shortly after about 33AD) ...
... on that basis it would be very easy for the gospel writers to decide that Jesus had died at the time when Pilate was the Roman governor of that area.
It's from one of Paul's letters - the "Pillars" are the leaders of the Church at Jerusalem (iirc where that meeting took place) - Paul says he went there about 3 years after his vision, and then again about 15 years after that vision. He apparently went to discuss with the church leaders (the "Pillars" of that church), his own wish to preach the message of "Christ Risen" to the uncircumcised Gentiles in the region ... whereas previously the church Pillars had apparently only preached their gospel to circumcised Jews.
IIRC, without looking it up again - there was no real argument (they agreed with Paul), but either in that description or in another letter Paul says that he learned nothing of the gospel or the religion from any of the Pillars, because he said that the gospel which he preached, i.e. his gospel of "Christ Risen" "came from no Man" and "nor was I taught it by anyone" ... instead he is adamant that it all came to him as a revelation from God whereupon he suddenly realised the true prophecy of the Christ in the words that he found in ancient "scripture" ... Paul often qualified what he preached by saying it was "according to scripture".
The character called Paul in the NT could not have been the originator of the Jesus cult form of Christianity.
All stories about Paul in and out the Epistles claimed he persecuted believers in the resurrected Christ.
In Acts 7, Saul/Paul was present at the killing of Stephen who preached about Christ who was raised from the dead.
There is no story anywhere, in or out the NT, where the character called Paul was the originator of the Christian cult.
The invented conversion of Saul/Paul occurred after the Gospel of the resurrected and ascended Jesus was already known and circulated in the Roman Empire.
All writers of antiquity, Christian or not, place the Pauline character after the story of the resurrected Jesus.
There is no historical evidence anywhere of Paul in the 1st century and no story anywhere, fiction or forgery, that Paul is the originator of the Jesus cult of Christians.
Paul the originator of Christianity is a baseless claim completely unsupported by any source of antiquity, historical or not.
Without the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles it is virtually impossible to derive a chronology for Paul and the Epistles.
What is clear is that the so-called Paul attempted to deceive his audience into believing he got information directly from his resurrected Jesus but a close examination would show that the Pauline character was most likely quoting, copying or paraphrasing the very Gospels and Acts of the Apostles.
Which source of antiquity would one use to show that Paul, real or not, kickstarted Christianity?
Christian writers claimed a character called Peter was preaching about the resurrected Jesus in ROME c 43 CE about 20 years before the supposed Paul arrived there as a prisoner c 63 CE.
Jerome's De Viris Illustribus
The supposed Pauline writer attempted to destroy the Jesus cult.
Galatians 1:13
The so-called Paul KICKED the Jesus cult from the start.
Acts 9:5
The Pauline character started kicking the Jesus cult out of existence before he was blinded by a bright light.
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Thanks!
I’m still a little in the dark about what the history is supposed to look like if the Pauline stuff is as it’s claimed from something like ad 50, vs if it’s much later. Dejudge, I’m interested in your thoughts, if you have a post or a resource you could link? Like, where and when are these ideas coming from and how are they getting worked into the pool of ideas that later canon will be chosen out of?
Every time I look through an early apologetic that’s trying to explain We Follow This Jesus Christ Our Lord person I find two things: ‘don’t look at those other wrong Christians over there, we are different’ and ‘our apostles looked at the OT books and that’s why we believe our stuff is right.’ But they’re all still in the weeds about whether there’s supposed to be resurrection or not and all these other major tenets of modern Christianity.
Assuming it was added much later when the resurrection was already part of the lore, what was the point of the Pauline stuff, what kind of things were its author/s trying to achieve?
I’m still a little in the dark about what the history is supposed to look like if the Pauline stuff is as it’s claimed from something like ad 50, vs if it’s much later. Dejudge, I’m interested in your thoughts, if you have a post or a resource you could link? Like, where and when are these ideas coming from and how are they getting worked into the pool of ideas that later canon will be chosen out of?
Every time I look through an early apologetic that’s trying to explain We Follow This Jesus Christ Our Lord person I find two things: ‘don’t look at those other wrong Christians over there, we are different’ and ‘our apostles looked at the OT books and that’s why we believe our stuff is right.’ But they’re all still in the weeds about whether there’s supposed to be resurrection or not and all these other major tenets of modern Christianity.
Assuming it was added much later when the resurrection was already part of the lore, what was the point of the Pauline stuff, what kind of things were its author/s trying to achieve?
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I don't really know anything or have any view on whether or not Paul's letters were originally written around 50 to 60AD, or whether as dejudge says they are much later than that. The earliest copies that actually exist are said to date to about 200AD in a papyrus form known as P46.
One interesting "fact" about P46, and in fact all the gospels as well, is that all copies and fragments that we have, were found not anywhere near Judea, but in Egypt! P46 itself (which contains most of the 13 letters) was apparently found somewhere near Cairo, but exactly where seems to be unknown. A huge amount of both NT gospels and OT "books" were also found at a place called Oxyrhynchus which is about 160 miles south of Cairo.
Here's a Wiki link to the Oxyrhnchus papyri -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri
And here's a Wiki link discussing P46 (i.e. Paul's Letters)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_46
There is also an incident in one of Paul's letters where he talks about "Some from James" who tried to force Paul's followers to circumcise themselves. Paul says he wishes those guys would cut themselves instead... Them's fightin' words...
Thanks!! It’s really fascinating to see where and when we’ve found some of this stuff! I appreciate the hand-holding, this stuff is hard to dive into.
Oof! I can’t decide if I’d love or hate trying to do that!
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It is virtually impossible to use only the so-called Pauline Epistles to date any event with respect to the Lord Jesus, the disciples/apostles and the Pauline writers.
Nowhere in all the so-called Pauline Epistles is it stated that the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified under Pilate.
Nowhere in all the so-called Pauline Epistles is it stated when the Lord Jesus was revealed to the Pauline writer.
Nowhere in all the so-called Pauline Epistles is it stated when the Pauline writer met Peter and the Lord's brother.
The so-called Pauline Epistles are extremely vague and chronologically incoherent if not used in conjunction with the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles.
So the people whom the Pauline writer claimed he persecuted would have to wait for the supposed Paul to first get converted and then wait for him to get some visions and then wait until he wrote letters to the Churches to find out when their resurrected Jesus was crucified??
Please, the Gospels and Acts were already written before all the Pauline Epistles and the Pauline writer were fabricated.
And, the non-supernatural things attributed to a character does not make that person a figure of history.
acbytesla
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Nope, not according to most biblical scholars. Some of Paul's letters are dated as early as 50AD and the earliest Gospel was Mark which they date to about 70AD. Acts is considered by a number of scholars to be a forgery and is dated to 90AD.
Consider it like the Star Wars canon. That the events in the stories of 1, 2 and 3 predate the events in 4, 5 and 6 tell us absolutely nothing about when any of it was written. The same is true with the New Testament.
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GDon
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Actually, Jesus's birth is usually put at around 4 BCE, mainly because of the references to Herod the Great who died around that time. Also, the Gospel of Luke has Jesus "about 30 years" around "the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar", which puts his birth at around 1 BCE.
So it's actually the census which is out of whack to those dates, being around 6 CE. Removing the census removes some confusion with the dates. "A man who has one watch knows the time, a man who has two watches is never sure."
But that's not the case at all. There were rebels throughout that area and time, starting with Judas the Galilean from around 6 CE. Josephus reports his sons were executed by the Romans around 46 CE.
There were messiah-types like Theudas around that time as well, leading people in (very short) holy revolt against Roman rule. Jesus is often lumped in with them. Not saying you're an atheist or mythicist, Delvo, but I believe the quote by some atheists on the topic used to be "figures like Jesus were a dime a dozen in those days!" Maybe the mythicists now use "Jesus was so unique to the time he didn't exist"???
The story comes from Acts of the Apostles, probably written in the Second Century CE. It's not taken seriously as a work of solid history. If Acts and Josephus are referring to the same person, then you are right of course. But it would be put down as legend-making rather than history-changing, and wouldn't cause anyone to need to re-guess the dates of early Christianity.
I think it's possible that the historical Jesus lived either earlier or later than supposed, and it deserves consideration. I agree with the thrust of your statements (though not on how the census was used as a birth-date selector). I've been nitpicky above, on order to help with accuracy of the data.
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Jerrymander
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Never said they did. But go ahead and play your rhetorical games.
GDon
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That's not entirely true, fortunately. There are internal markers that suggest dates for when texts were written, and external markers, like references to that early text, which provides a range for possible start and end dates. But those ranges are often quite wide, usually decades and sometimes even centuries.
There is the problem that all we have today are mostly copies of copies of copies. Did Julius Caesar really exist? We don't have any writings by him, only copies of copies of copies. We don't have writings by anyone who met him. Only copies of copies of copies. Who knows who changed them, maybe even originated them? Statues? Coins? Well, we have statues and coins showing Jupiter.
What might be significant in the case of the HJ/MJ debate though, is that mythicists like Dr Richard Carrier and Earl Doherty are generally satisfied to use the dates of texts that modern scholarship has decided on. Both sides of the debate date Paul's letters to the 50s, the Gospels late First Century/early Second Century, and the other letters to the same period. The idea that Paul wrote in the Second Century is a fringe view on both sides. It's enough common ground to debate on the merits of the HJ/MJ case.
In order to make an argument for or against an HJ and early Pauline writings one must be familiar with existing writings of antiquity.
There are many, many writings of antiquity that must first be examined.
This is a partial list:
The works of Philo, Josephus, Pliny the Elder, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the younger, Aristides, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Minucius Felix, the short gMark, the long gMark, Lucian, Plutarch, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origen, Arnobius, Lactantius, Severus, Eusebius, Julian, Jerome, Chrysostom, Ephraem, and the Christian Bible.
Now, examine any version of the Epistle to the Romans and tell me where it is shown that the Epistle was written c 57 CE as suggested by so-called Scholars.
Read every chapter, every verse and every word in the Epistle to the Romans and you will never ever find anything at all to show it was written c57 CE- absolutely nothing.
Now, examine any version of Acts of the Apostles and tell me where it is shown that an Epistle to the Romans was written by Saul/Paul c 57 CE as suggested by so-called Scholars.
Read every chapter, every verse and every word and you will never ever find anything at all to show an Epistle to the Romans was by written Saul/Paul c 57 CE --absolutely nothing.
How then did so-called Scholars get their c 57 CE date for the Epistles to the Romans??
They simply made it up.
There are many writings of antiquity which show that the so-called Pauline Epistles were late and had no influence at all on the early Jesus cult and that the character Paul was not known in the Roman Empire.
Now, a close examination of the Epistles to the Romans would show that it was written after the Fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE.
Look at Romans 11.
The author is writings about events which already occurred.
When was it said that the severity of God fell on the Jews in Christian writings ?
When was it said that the Jews were cut-off from their God?
It was after the destruction of the Jewish Temple and the fall of Jerusalem c 70 CE.
Now, if the author of the Epistle to the Romans is the same as the Epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians and Thessalonians then the Pauline character wrote and lived after c 70 CE.
Which early apologetic writer appears to be confused about the resurrection of their Jesus?
Is it the author of gMark, gMatthew, gLuke, gJohn, the Pauline Epistles, the Catholic Epistles, Revelation, Hebrews, or Ignatius, Aristides, Justin, Origen, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Jerome.....??
I can't find any early apologetic writer who is confused about whether or not there was a resurrection.
After all, apologetic writers claimed their Jesus taught his disciples that he would be killed and resurrect on the third day.
The author was trying to achieve the same thing as those who falsely attributed the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The NT writings were falsely attributed to supposed witnesses of Jesus and the apostles to claim primacy over the heretics.
Examine Tertullian's "Prescription Against the Heretics"
The NT authors were fabricated as those who existed in the time of the apostles or were supposed to be apostles themselves to claim primacy over the heretics.
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There is nothing anywhere to support the claim that Epistles were written as early as 50 CE.
You don't know the difference between opinion and actual evidence.
Plenty Scholars suggest that Pauline Epistles were written since 50 CE but there has never been any evidence anywhere to support such a suggestion.
Ok, there is nothing in the Epistles that can tell us when they were written.
The c 50 CE dates for Pauline Epistles are all baseless assumption by Scholars.
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